Jewel Riders, Episode 5: Wizard’s Peak

Last time on Princess Gwenevere / Starla and the Jewel Riders, Tamara got brainwashed by a magic harp, the Jewel Riders found the Rainbow Crown Jewel, and Drake got tied up by those annoying baby animals. Will Drake finally get some respect? Find out after the cut.

What Do We Remember About This Episode?

JW: The Jewel Riders in a land of ice and snow! Mine cart mayhem! Annoying genie!

A Quick and Dirty Summary:
Somewhere in the Crystal Peaks, the Jewel Riders (sans Tamara) and the Pack meet up with a Mongolian-looking fellow who gives them an old map that will hopefully lead them to the Crown Jewel of Burning Ice. But then Kale shows up, so the party runs away and escapes through a conveniently well-hidden tunnel.

Drake obviously studied the map before, so he’s confident that he can make his way to where the Crown Jewel is. Gwen decides to go with him, though it’s very obvious that she wants some quality time with Drake, and not to be there when he finds the jewel. Fallon and the other Pack members decide to distract Kale.

The distraction doesn’t really work, though, because Kale quickly figures out that Gwen and Drake went elsewhere.

After lots of riding through icy landscapes, Gwen and Drake get lost. Thanks, missing Crown Jewel, for screwing up the landscape! But of course, Drake gets no respect because Gwen blames him for getting lost.

Eventually, the party finds a mine shaft that leads to a wizard’s lair, complete with magic box filled with magic junk. Drake opens a magic flask without even reading what it does, but nothing bad happens so it’s okay. The fun quickly ends, however, because a genie pops out of the box and attacks Gwen and Drake because he thinks they’re trying to steal wizard stuff. Gwen and Drake fall down a hole into another mine shaft.

Sometime later, the dweasels enter the wizard’s lair and find the Crown Jewel of Burning Ice in the magic box. The genie thinks that the dweasels are wizards (wearing a wizard hat helps), so he caters to all their whims. And by “whims”, I mean “get hot dweasel babes” and “potato chip rain”.

Meanwhile, Drake’s wolf Thunder gets stuck in the mine shaft entrance, so Sunstar flies off to get reinforcements. And by “reinforcements”, I mean “Tamara and those annoying baby animals”. Thunder gets freed, and then the babies explore the cave looking for Gwen and Drake. Cleo finds them, but the babies screw up relaying Gwen’s message to Tamara, so Tamara ends up activating a mine cart that whisks off Gwen, Drake, the babies, and the dweasels. But hey, at least everyone got out of the cave, and Gwen managed to steal the Crown Jewel from the dweasels.

And then Kale shows up demanding the Crown Jewel, and the genie shows up wanting to attack everyone because he thinks they’re all thieves. Gwen diffuses the situation by returning the Crown Jewel to the jewel box. Merlin pops up, tells the genie to stand down, and gives this week’s PSA: It’s not the path you choose, it’s how you walk the path. Also, don’t be shy about asking for directions.

After Kale leaves, Drake offers to lead the Jewel Riders home. Gwen and the others pelt him with snowballs. Poor guy never gets any respect.

Stray Observations
* I’ve always loved the danger music that plays at the beginning of this episode, and the music during the mine cart sequence.

* The Pack are also addressed as Jewel Riders. So is the Pack just a branch of the Jewel Riders that wears Forest Stones and bond exclusively with wolves?

* Everyone wears their winter outfits in this episode. I’ve always liked the winter clothes — so much so that I used to draw them all the time.

* Kale is so bad-ass, she doesn’t need to wear winter clothes!

* So how exactly are Grimm and the dweasels able to keep up normal activity levels in a winter environment? They’re reptiles! They’re supposed to be hibernating or something!

* Fallon can make smoke screens with her Moon Stone.

* Kale has apparently learned not to run into obvious walls this time around.

* This time, if the Jewel Riders don’t find the Crown Jewel, the area will become uninhabitable. Not that the Crystal Peaks look habitable to begin with. Also, the Crown Jewel can change the landscape, which happens quite a bit in this episode.

* I can’t get enough of how smart Kale is in this episode. She doesn’t fall for Fallon’s diversion, and she gets pretty close to obtaining a Crown Jewel. If only that stupid mine cart ride didn’t happen….

* All that stuff about ancient wizards will be Very Important in the second season.

* WHOEVER OPENS THIS CHEST, BEWARE! And then Drake opens it.

* Poor Guardian genie suffers from serious badass decay. He’s awesome when he’s reflecting magic back at the Jewel Riders … and then he turns into a rip-off of the genie from Aladdin for the rest of the episode.

* Drake actually uses his dagger!

* Never let the babies be in charge of rescue missions.

* I never want to see a female dweasel again.

* How does blasting the mine cart’s steering wheel with the Sun Stone make it go faster?

* You know, Kale could’ve tricked the Guardian into thinking she’s a wizard by showing it her Dark Stone. But obviously Kale doesn’t know that she possesses a Wizard Jewel yet.

* Okay, I admit it: I’m starting to love Kale now. Granted, I kinda did before — my one attempt at writing Jewel Riders fanfiction had Kale as a reluctant antagonist — but I’m starting to appreciate her more now. It’s too bad she has moronic bonded animals working for her.

Ry’s Comments

* This has always been one of my favorite episodes, but I didn’t know the actual names for a long time. My friends and i just called it “Burning Ice.”

* I too have always loved the winter outfits – it’s a shame they never get worn again during the series.

* The Hall of Wizards is awesome, and I love that this episode showcases that Gwen has been tutored by Queen Anya in ancient runes and languages. The Hall of Wizards and the Guardian makes another appearance in the beginning of S2. Sadly it’s Disney ripoff version and not cool djinn version that comes back later.

* As a bit of a Drake/Gwen shipper, this is one of the best instances you’ll get for this ship. I’ve always loved their flirty interaction.

* No shame, I still laugh at a few of the dweasel jokes in this episode – particularly when the Genie says “who dares to steal the magic?” and Rufus simply point at Twig and says “Him.” Also, when the dweasels get into the mine care, Sugar says “Eek, a dweasel!” and Twig replies “Eek! Yourself.”

* “Cut some boats and load them onto the flying raft!” Oh Sugar. This is also an episode where we see a Babies and Archie working together, a team that (unfortunately for Archie) makes repeat performances.

* I love the mine cart chase, though I’ve always had to chuckle when they mixed up the animation and had Sunstar sitting in the cart for one frame instead of Cleo.

12 comments

The unfinished story is on Fanfiction.net somewhere. It hasn’t been updated since 2003 or so. Just check the Jewel Riders section and you’ll probably find it. I think I used a lot of really poorly-translated Japanese in it, too. (This was before I took studying foreign languages seriously.)

I think I’ll make more gifs from the previous eps, except of Travel Trees where there’s enough.

Speaking of gifs, is it just me or http://imgflip.com/i/3a82d is a lot like something out of Gargoyles? (Also I always wished someone would write a crossover story fof these 2 Avalons.) Guardian is hands down the best animated character in the show.

“I see why people on YouTube comment that Kale and the dweezils are the most interesting characters, because they are. The only good guys who don’t make my mind start wandering sometimes while watching an episode are Drake and Archie, and that’s because they’re allowed to be flawed and show that they have personality traits aside from ‘homogeneous good’.”